Alien Rebel’s Techdirt Comments

Re:

I'm of course addressing EconProf, who's argumentation format is typical of cult members and libertarians alike (OK, so that's redundant.) Simply lay on the baloney so fast and so thick that no one's going to bother picking the train wreck apart in order to respond in detail. Maoist communists, Title II proponents, and populists everywhere are all the same. Yep, sure. Poverty's solved. Check. Regulation always corrupts. Okeedokee. Like the laws of physics are to physicists. Geez, we're stoned now.

Re: Re:

". . . people playing 'is not, is too'"

You know how we can tell it's all Kabuki? We don't see fist fights breaking out like in the Ukrainian or Turkish parliaments. If our elected reps actually BELIEVED their crap, we'd see them overdose on BS once in a while and clobber some lying sack. God knows there's enough bull flying about. (I got your snowball right here, Inhofe.)

Contrast

If you haven't worked up enough rage yet to rush out and stock up on torches and pitchforks (hurry while supplies last) then go beyond just looking at what the U.S. doesn't have; look at what's going on elsewhere. Try Googling "Broadband Delivery UK" or "Superfast Broadband Programme."

It seems they're working hard in the UK to extend high speed broadband (24 Mbps+) to nearly every friggin' homestead, no matter how rural.

The situation may be more nuanced than what I see from my personal surfing (of course it is) but it looks like the citizens, telecoms and government in the UK are working reasonably well together to get it done. But what really kills me were the things that did not turn up in my research to any noticeable degree- ALEC-like obstruction, lobbyists and politicians crying that socialism is killing puppies, telecom propaganda insisting that all you citizen/serfs should just be patient, and that the free market fairy and/or Google fiber will be along to save you any day now.

Last year I stumbled on the website of a project in the UK, B4RN (Broadband for the Rural North) a non-profit social enterprise set up to organize local citizens and resources to build out fiber to homes in rural communities where British Telecom and Virgin are unable to do so profitably. From the B4RN site- "The aim is to build a community-owned gigabit Fibre To The Home (FTTH) network in the scarcely populated, deeply rural uplands of Lancashire in the north west of England utilising the skills, time, energy and ingenuity of the local residents and businesses."

B4RN’s purpose is to undertake the supply, installation and operation of a full FTTH network providing a fibre link directly into every property in its service area. It works on a parish by parish basis and aims to deliver both technical excellence and 100% inclusivity within those targeted parishes. No exclusions because a property is too far away or too difficult to reach – it will be available to everyone. This is world class broadband offering 1Gbs (1000 megabits a second) service speeds and will jump our rural community from the slow lane to the leading edge of technology and keep it there for decades to come.

Wouldn't it be great to have some such community based non-profits on the loose in West Virginia, working in partnership and getting serious support from both the Federal government and telecoms? Oh, right, U.S. telecom profits are sacred, and that sort of thing is either banned or discouraged here, thanks to ALEC and others. Maybe we'll catch up to the Brits in a few decades, once the legal challenges to our latest FCC regs finally get through our court system.

In short, damned if you do, damned if you don't. This is the justice system, ladies and gentlemen. The DOJ gets to seize and keep all your money, and merely asking for access to it to fight to show your innocence is used as a reason to allow the DOJ to keep it.

Sweet! This means no more of this "we can't criminally prosecute anybody, it'd be too hard" nonsense, DOJ can just clean out the rats nests of conspirators at Bank of America, HSBC, JP Morgan-Chase. I can't wait to read tomorrow's papers, . . .--

Re: Re: Re:

We're not there yet, not quite. We still have some vestiges of governmental authority that our oligarchs are crying hot tears over. Russia, on the other hand, seems to have arrived. About the only difference between them and 16th century Sienna is that the modern Russian serfs have cell phones.

Re:

Careful now, that's the card holding up the magnificently constructed house of Libertarian thought. If the power government wields doesn't just magically disappear when the government goes away, then what? Oh right, Papal armies, warlords, chaos of Italian city-state warfare, and all the history of the middle ages, cited in the Federalist Papers as reason for why a strong central government is essential.

Think Goldmad Sacks wouldn't assemble an army of mercenaries if they could? Let's completely de-fang the federal government and find out.-

Good Dingo

I'd like to see John Oliver do a followup segment on how Tom Wheeler is clearly still a dingo; but in having ripped the pant legs off Pai and O'Reilly and taken a few chunks out of their buttocks, has shown that dingos can in fact make very good pets. Good boy, Tom!

Re: Re: Oh, Please

Lawsuits over speech are a bad idea. I'm hopeful though, that if FOX continues on its current trajectory they'll ultimately be forced to hand over their choice seating at press events to Comedy Central. Sorry, Heraldo, real reporters coming through, . .

Off on a tangent, my ultimate fantasy would be to witness John Oliver get SCOTUS press credentials.--

I hope this doesn't break the internet, but I'm going to give credit where credit is due; antidirt, you're a trooper. Why, I have no idea, and I won't go there; that's between you and your professional psychiatric caregiver.

I'm going to simply provide an observation which I won't spend further time arguing about; take it FWIW. In all your attempts at rebuttals, and efforts to support your points, you have cited past law and legal opinions numerous times. Law is of course built (some might say arguably) on great ideas, and the thinking of others. I'd like to point out that great works of intellect are not exclusive to the legal profession. Obviously, this leads us right back to the original post this train wreck of a dialog should have been about- what gets lost when the thinking of others is sequestered.

If you have any kind of an imagination, you can understand that just as with law, great works in all the intellectual and creative disciplines of mankind have immeasurable value when others can access them, modify them, build upon them. No need for me to go further; you either get it or you don't. See you around.